Thakowsaizmu wrote:Anyway, I know full well Marvel will have this title cancelled within no time. Her powers are atrocious. However, I am all for representation in the media. Just because a lot of straight white guys read comics doesn't mean it's only straight white guys. And what does this one title do to take away from all the straight white guy titles? Nothing. What does it do for someone else though? This:

That reminds me of Nichelle Nichols' story of meeting Dr. King when she was considering quitting the role of Uhura. Dr. King recognized how important Uhura was, even if she wasn't that developed as a character and never took the lead (in the live action series anyway). Representation matters and no matter how Marvel plays this up in publicity, it's still a character representing a grossly underrepresented group being written by a woman who actually belongs to that underrepresented group (as a Muslim woman albeit not one of Middle Eastern descent). That's inherently interesting to me and a positive thing. It's not like the writer and artist are complete unknowns that were just grabbed to meet a quota. Wilson is an accomplished author and journalist and an Eisner-nominated comic writer. Alphona is a bit more obscure but did co-create the Runaways who were reasonably successful despite being quite diverse for a superhero team. Outside of Chase, every one of them falls into at least one minority group, even if "mutant" and "not built like a supermodel" are only minority groups in comics. Granted, the main plot of Runaways had very little to do with the ethnicity or orientation of the leads.

"This is all your fault! You shouldn't have taken that cat! You don't teleport into strange metal places and steal pets!"Builds

Vexous wrote:Theres the problem though, they aren't selling a character with stories, they're selling a point of political correctness. Seriously, who wants to buy a comic to read something like that?

Why do you say that? We haven't even seen the character yet. We've got an interview and some concept art, as well as some chat about her as a character. Not every non-white non-straight character is a "point of political correctness". It turns out there are actually Muslim women living in the United States.

Judge the stories for the stories, not for what you perceive is a sales pitch. In fact, by the logic of "sales pitch", wouldn't this be working against Marvel? I mean, clearly they are making more enemies than friends on this one.

I don't hold out much hope for the title. But that is because of Marvel's current track record, and not because of the character herself.

Not that I blame you. How could you even begin to grasp the plight of the straight, white male? You haven't lived your whole life with everything catered directly to you. You don't know how scary and confusing it can be to be told that you're the figurative centre of the universe your entire life, and then suddenly encounter a piece of pop culture which might have been created without your specific perspective in mind. I mean, it's probably still going to be created with straight, white males in mind, because it's superhero comic published by Marvel, but maybe not solely.

And because we've never had the opportunity to develop the coping skills one learns if they've been lucky enough to live life in the margins of society, all we can do with that fear is turn it into some kind of impotent anger. How dare a superhero comic book be published featuring a character that I can't identify with? Female and muslim? Maybe one of things would be okay. There have been females in comic books before and it wasn't the end of the world. Wonder Woman got to take notes at the JLA meetings! Both though? It's too much. Obviously Marvel is only trying to make a desperate grasp at all those minority dollars -- all minorities like the same thing, right? -- and taking a giant crap in the corn flakes of their true fans.

Kyle, did you have something on your mind? "Lucky enough to live in the margins of society"? Have you ever actually met anyone along those lines or is this more assumption on you part? Your post seems to have some, I dunno, overtones of overcompensation on your part? Or was that simple sarcasm? Both? I get confused easily, my bad. "Lucky enough"? Yeah, I see where you're coming from. Good luck with that.

Thak you're right we haven't seen the character yet. But if you look, it isn't hard to read the writing on the wall above what we have seen, "This way to Doom!" As far as representation goes I agree with you, its good to put new flavors out there, even though some may find them "scary and confusing". Setting a plate out in the open for everyone to try whats on it is like what was done with Uhura, all fair and well, and it worked. It was a side dish. What we have here however is the main dish, and that's where the problem is.

Vexous wrote:It was a side dish. What we have here however is the main dish, and that's where the problem is.

A spin-off of a character Marvel considers so low profile that a talking raccoon is getting a movie before they even discuss a film with her in it? That's pretty much the definition of side dish to me. Now granted, Kamala's the lead in a series but that doesn't really determine how "front and center" a property is. Look at all the nu-52 titles that weren't part of the Justice League umbrella.

Vexous wrote:"Lucky enough to live in the margins of society"? Have you ever actually met anyone along those lines or is this more assumption on you part?

Vexous, Kyle's taking the piss out of you and clearly making light of all this. But even if one somehow doesn't know anyone belonging to a "point of political correctness," it's not hard to find plenty of very vocal people who feel they are underrepresented in comics (and other media).

Last edited by The_Watchman on Fri Nov 08, 2013 1:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"This is all your fault! You shouldn't have taken that cat! You don't teleport into strange metal places and steal pets!"Builds

Vexous wrote:"Lucky enough to live in the margins of society"? Have you ever actually met anyone along those lines or is this more assumption on you part?

Of course not! Could you imagine? Interacting with someone who wasn't a straight white male?

Is there...is there like a place that you go to do that? Like some kind of petting zoo? I mean, not that I would go! Never! I might be exposed to something that doesn't fit into my straight white male worldview, and I think I'd probably have a nervous breakdown, or a violent outbreak. Maybe both!

Sometimes I think it would be nice to meet a woman though... I knew a guy who claimed he met one once. He said they smell nice.

Okay so we have two new Marvel brand books & I hate to say this but they are not going to last. Alas these writers seem to not have learnt there lesson from the previous failures of the Captain Marvel title.

So going into a little detail without spoiling anything, there have been 2 issues of Ms Marvel, along with a digital mini episode & unfortunately the same mistake of "this book serves no purpose" rears its ugly head again. This seems to be a common theme with the NOW books, but this one is the one where it is the most evident. When a new book is pitched, especially in a short page count serialised fiction format, you MUST have a pitch. An reading this book, the pitch is "look a female muslim character, written by a female muslim author." Unfortunately this is essentially the same failed pitch as Captain Marvel which was "look a female feminist character, written be a female feminist author."

An it fails not because the character is female or feminist, or muslim, or any combination thereof, or because the author is, but because you need some actual plot beyond that. We are two episodes in (three if you count the mini) & so far nothing has occurred except a origin event that has been better utilised in other contemporary books. There is no external conflict, there isn't even the foreshadowing of external conflict.

Lets compare that to 4 other similar titles- Icon- Static - The 99- Midnight Tiger.

What all these comics have in common other than being a much better read is that they all cover some of the same political concepts. An they all do it while remembering that they are selling a superhero comic, sold in a serialised 23 page format (or in this case 18 pages because Marvel is short-changing us on page count again).

Icons first issue gives us a space battle, an origin, an establishment of the character, an establishment of a supporting cast & the ideological views of all the main characters, as well as a stand off with the police & an external conflict, all in 26 pages. Static likewise does all that, with the exception of the origin event, which isn't told until issue 2 & its told in flash back (because it is always better to show than to just tell).

The 99 has a harder job in that it has to introduce an entirely new universe, as well as an entire team of characters, a narrative reason for the book to exist & an external conflict.... An it achieves all that in 27 pages of story.

An last but not least is Midnight Tiger: Being an indi it has less in the way of technical skill & yet it still finds a way to establish the overarching plot, the characters, the motivations & the external conflict mechanism.

Ms Marvels done none of that yet & it shows. If you are going to already reduce interest in your book by pitching the Muslim character angle in a predominately Christian country, to then short change yourself on plot & give people even more reason to not pick up the book is just a bad business decision. If Ms Marvel was a non super hero book told in a single graphic novel or digest novel format, maybe they could have got away with it, but its not & that's just not going to work. i'll be interested to see how long this lasts & how high (or low) the sales figures are in a couple of months.

EDIT: I ran out of steam before I got to the new Captain Marvel book, but the TLDR version is essentially this: Why does this book exist? What's its actual purpose? Who is its actual audience?

“Anti-Intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.”-Isaac Asimov

I like the Ms Marvel book, and some of your criticisms make me wonder if you actually read the book at all, but I think it's just a case that you obviously, by previous postings, went into the read planning on hating it.

It's a good "Teenage Hero" origin so far, if a bit decompressed, (which is just how comics seem to work now) and the Muslim angle of the story is surprisingly light. It reads like something that might be better as a trade, but then, pretty much all modern comics Im seeing now do that.

Stormson wrote:I like the Ms Marvel book, and some of your criticisms make me wonder if you actually read the book at all, but I think it's just a case that you obviously, by previous postings, went into the read planning on hating it.

/facepalm.

Stormson do you know what appeal to motive is? An appeal to motive is a form of ad hominem attack in which it is asserted that the opponent's argument is false because they have some (base) motive for advancing it; it is a way of poisoning the well.

Now I went to great detail on WHY this book doesn't work, if you are going to reply to that, then the very least you can do is to actually speak to the points being made. If you don't agree with what is being said, that is your right, but at the very least refute actual salient points, otherwise what we have is not a discussion its just the adult version of saying: "nah ah,, because you are a pooopy head & have cooties."

“Anti-Intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.”-Isaac Asimov

Okay, I appear to be using this thread as a bit of a review thread for the new NOW line of books, so I suppose its only fair that I move on to Iron Patriot.

Now arguably Iron Patriot was better than the others, but not by a whole heap. All three properties are in very similar boats, in fact Iron Patriot is in exactly the same boat, except someone has put nicer seats in the Iron Patriots boat & painted it red, white & blue.

For a change of pace, i'll start with the pros: It did a great job of establishing the character.... We now know about the non-caped individuals who are important to this story & a little about them & that's great.... Unfortunately, the way it was presented was not issue 1 fodder, it was second story arc fodder: It literally takes up 8 pages of the 18 page run time.

Now this wouldn't be so bad if the other 10 pages were absolutely riveting, must read story telling, set to not only set up a new epoch for War Machine, ahem I mean Iron Patriot, but alas this was not the case.

Three entire pages are dedicated to a fore-shadowing prologue. Now that kind of prologue is like an oyster, there is no such thing as a good oyster.... There are terrible oysters & there are great oysters, there is no middle ground. Same goes for fore-shadowing prologues. The idea is tho show enough to get me hooked, but not to much to give it all away & not so little as to be annoyingly confusing.... An by the gods you better have tied it in to some story point in that issue, or past issues.

Alas this does not do that. This gives us the generic "the hero has died/is dying" prologue that you just know is not going to stick when it occurs on the first page of the first issue of said characters own ongoing series.

Which moves us on to the last three pages where some vague monstrous monsters are doing something vaguely menacing of no real plot importance (literally doesn't give any description of events, its just a plot contrivance), when the Iron Patriot suit just falls from the sky & stops working & oh look, now you are going to drown because you were over an ocean.... Wow, I wonder if he's going to survive.... Seriously, pretending the main character might die twice in one issue, of the first issue of that characters ongoing series, is just lame.

the rest of the book is taken up by characters speechifying in the classic MLK "I have a dream" style monologues.

So once again we come to a decompressed story, where nothing much happens, there is no external threat, just annoying foreshadowing. In the words of the mid 90's Nike advertisement: Just do it. Don't foreshadow, don't clog up pages that don't go anywhere, write a god damn establishment chapter setting the stage for later events & make me care about that character. Because if I don't care, because you haven't made me care, I'm not going to pick up issue 2, because as I've pointed out, I lack the necessary "caring."

When an issue 1 comes out I should be pumped to find out what happens next & I didn't get that from this.

“Anti-Intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.”-Isaac Asimov